Energy Independence Day

Yesterday, in the United States the bands and bunting were
on display, because it was Independence Day. But is freedom really
sustainable, without energy independence too?

It would be a sweeter thing, political independence, if it were
accompanied by more energy independence. For examples, choices at
the pump that didn’t involve wealth transfers to people who oppose
the principle of ballot boxes.

But before there is energy independence, there has to be more
freedom from the entropy that afflicts the energy business, and
especially the bioenergy business.

Hmm, entropy, er, what’s that again?

Well, there are millions of tons of gold in the oceans, so why
aren’t fisherman all millionaires? That’s entropy, the tendency of
everything to reduce from useful concentrations to a smooth
distribution. In the case of gold in seawater, the concentrations
are so low, in parts per million, that the extraction cost
exceeds the value of the metal.

The entropy problem in feedstocks

In bioenergy, it’s the chief reason, for example, that otherwise
perfectly acceptable fruit waste from citrus harvest is a
difficult feedstock for energy production. The process for
cellulosic conversion was discovered in the 1990s – so what’s the
hold up? Just not enough fruit waste in a given target area,
and the proposed stand-alone refineries are limited so far to an
unprofitable 4 million gallons.

Think of what a different world it would be if certain residues
were sufficiently concentrated. For example, there is 2 billion
tons of MSW produced each year, according to a Columbia University
estimate. Right there, you have the means to produce some 160
billion gallons of biofuels.

The entropy problem in capital

So, why is the world not awash in cellulosic biofuels from MSW?
Well, capital is subject to its own entropy – it never seems to be
in the right hands at the right time, never concentrated enough in
the hands of those who can afford big risks. Instead, it is
distributed across lots of smaller portfolios that, generally,
take much smaller risks. Greenfield biorefineries are a tough sell
in tough times. There’s entropy, again.

Which brings us to corn stover and cobs – these days, generally
just left in the field. POET Biomass estimates that you can
acquire enough cellulosic feedstock, from the area serving a 100
million gallon corn ethanol plant, to add 25 million gallons in
capacity. Right there, you have, in the form of corn ethanol
biorefinery bolt ons, the capacity to add 3.5 billion gallons of
cellulosic capacity.

Now, that’s entropy at work, again – because about 22 percent of
the US corn harvest goes to corn ethanol – meaning there’s an
awful lot of cobs and stover lying around, that simply is not near
enough to an existing corn ethanol plant. Applying the POET
Biomass math, it’s a fair estimate that there is perhaps another
15 or 16 billion gallons in capacity available, by finding ways to
aggregate cobs and stover.

Which brings us around to in-field pre-processing. It’s simply
going to have to become a given, in combine harvesting, to pick up
the cobs and stover in a one-pass system. Which makes it sad to
see small businesses, like the team behind the FARM MAX
biomass harvesting technology, struggle for investor attention and
support.

Piloting an integrated bioeconomy

Now, that’s something the Midwestern Governors Association, which
has a task force on biorefining and biofuels, might usefully
tackle. Instead of handing out incentives for plant construction,
why not incentivize lower costs for biomass collection, and help
put in the pumps. By concentrating demand and supply, you can open
up markets – by fighting entropy.

It doesn’t have to be a big government hand-out. Hand-outs, as we
have discovered, rarely solve market problems and create new
perceptional ones. As if states were awash in money, anyway. It
means using the organizational power of government, as opposed to
the taxing power. Organizing one, small area to become an
exemplar to a wider world. Car dealers, growers, processors,
financiers and state government, all have a stake in a positive
outcome, and could and should be counted on to bear some of the
cost.

Not too long ago, Greensburg, Kansas embarked on a hugely
ambitious experiment in green living – too ambitious, probably,
though many good things have come of its commitment, which
followed the devastation wrought by an F5 tornado. The principle
of picking out one or two towns, or a small region, is a good one.

Why, towns might vie for such an honor, with a resulting local
organization that produces the kind of cooperation and
cost-sharing that we see in, say, cities that have organized an
Olympics or a world’s fair. Doesn’t have to be a major
metropolitan city, as in the case of an Olympics. Blair,
Nebraska…Shenandoah, Iowa…well, a lot of small towns could work
this kind of magic.

Of course, it’s not something restricted to the United States.
Towns from Canada to Denmark, South Africa to China, India to
Brazil could mount such an effort.

Been done before

Two hundred years ago, a similar approach – a pilot scheme, using
a fledgling, underpopulated United States – worked wonders for the
principles of freedom of opportunity and political independence.
Whole swathes of the wide world are today organized along the
principles established by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin
et al, back in 1776. Democracy and freedom won a worldwide
following, once it was proven that liberty, in fact, is a driver
of happiness and prosperity.

We suspect a similar effort on energy independence might reap a
similarly impressive harvest. A new birth of energy freedom,
my what a good outcome that would be. Especially for all those
small towns that have borne such a heavy burden to establish those
political freedoms that we enjoy today.